? post on fine adjustment modification for fortec dish

[B.J.]

I was about to modify my 90CM Fortec dish with pole mount to add a fine adjustment turnbuckle or something for elevation. However, I seem to remember someone posting about this, perhaps it wasn't in this forum, but I thought it was.

I was going to move my Fortec up onto the roof of a garage where it won't be so easy to get to, so I wanted to make adjusting elevation as easy as possible.


Anyway, rather than re-inventing the wheel, does anyone remember such a post?

 

[Mr Tony]

Brent did it on a 1.2m Fortec dish
http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-shack/170152-update-mods-fortec-120cm-dish.html

 

[phlatwound]

I just checked, don't have any pics of it but my BJU .9m has a nice factory-installed adjuster on it. I'll take a pic tonight and post it if you need it.

 

[B.J.]

Thanks for both responses. The picture of Brent's mod isn't the same mount I have, but it does give me an idea of what I can do, since it seems to just push on the back of the lnbf arm. I was hoping for something simple and fairly light so as not to burden the motor any more than it already is.
I'm thinking I can just push a dowel or PVC pipe up inside the SG2100 bent shaft, so it extends below the shaft, and thread it so a bolt can go through the dowel and push on the back side of the lnbf arm similarly to what Brent did.
If I get it to work, I'll post pictures.

 

[Anole]

yes:

I talked to JsatTV a couple of years ago about his Fortec 1.0 dish, and here's what we came up with:

JsatTV and his trouble with elevation adjustment on Fortec dish:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-ai...-fortec-star-dish-elevation-2.html#post889050
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-ai...-re-fine-tuning-1-meter-fortec-star-dish.html
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-ai...h-stab-hh-120-motor-tips-lessons-learned.html

I'll look for some pictures and other threads to add, with alternate ideas.

edit: here's a picture by Elder (see below)

Edit: and here's a picture of a Bob Jones University dish, posted by Lak7 (other pix by Phlatwound)

EDIT: third time's charm?
DirtyShame posted some good adjustment ideas:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/433312-post52.html

I'm not sure if the one you wanted is in this collection.
I seem to remember calling somebody Turnbuckle Bill, but haven't found his posts....

edit: I think Turnbuckle Bills ideas were incorporated into the JsatTV idea, so see first link above for more info.

ALSO, Stogie5150 posted some pretty good thinkin' in this thread, along with dandy pictures.!
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/95091-primestar-75e.html

 

[B.J.]

Thanks for MORE ideas. One demonstrates that I could eliminate a bit of weight by eliminating part of the existing mount. I think I'm still going to try something like what I've mentioned above, but this has given me some ideas.

 

[phlatwound]

Here's a few more pics:

 

[Anole]

Great BJU dish pix PhlatWound! - :up
I've never seen a real one, but from all the fine pix on the forum, I'll know one when I find it!.

And your avatar is sure outstanding.
You updated it with the snow on the dishes, eh?

 

[phlatwound]

Great BJU dish pix PhlatWound! - :up
I've never seen a real one, but from all the fine pix on the forum, I'll know one when I find it!.

And your avatar is sure outstanding.
You updated it with the snow on the dishes, eh?

Thanks Anole, nothing like a little snow on a gray day for nice lighting!

And yes, I did update the avatar pic for the winter look, we've had a lot of days that looked just like that this season.

 

[walrus1957]

Here is a mod kit I developed for the Winegard DS2076 dish model. I wonder if it would work as well for your dish. I put this on all the 76cm dishes I install. I must have made up over 4 dozen of these kits, should still have a few kits left over.

This works really well for very fine incremental adjustments to dish elevation. Makes aligning motorized dishes a breeze.

 

[B.J.]

Thanks
The Walrus mount looks most like mine. I'm trying to put something similar together, except I've made a piece of plexiglas to go up inside the pipe, and am going to thread a hole through it, or perhaps just drill a hole and put a nut in the middle. I think I'll just have it push on the lnbf arm instead of a hard attachment.

 

[Anole]

Nice work, Walrus!
Very creative.
Thanks for sharing your vision. - :up

Wish all the dish manufacturers included such a trick mod.
Might cost 'em an extra buck, but it might also repay them in extra sales...

 

[SatelliteAV]

Here is a prototype that we are designing for the GEOSATpro 90cm. Working with the manufacturer at this time to incorporate.

 

[B.J.]

Well, with all the fancy suggestions, I'm almost afraid to post this, but the picture below is my first stab at it, using some things that I had in my shop.
I need a longer bolt, and something better than a pipette bulb for the end of the bolt, but I think this will eventually work pretty well for my purposes.
The chunk of plexiglass is from an old explosion shield that was salvaged from a lab I used to work in, and I cut a little slot for the nut to sit in for the bolt to thread into.

Kind of crude, but it seems like it will work.

 

[B.J.]

I improved the above a bit. Replaced the pipette bulb with a piece of teflon rod that I rounded off in the lathe.

 

[brentb636]

An interesting thought, BJ.
I hadn't even considered using the motor tube as a mounting point for a "pusher style" adjuster. Lots of different ways to skin the cat, I guess. Just another one for the album, and fodder for next person to "feel the need" .

 

[AcWxRadar]

I use the "Patent Pending" ( ) Walrus Elevation adjustment adapter for my Winegard DS-2076 dish(es).

It is a godsent device! You don't realize how many times a person can get in a rush to make a minor tweak and forget to support the dish when you loosen the elevation bracket bolts. Without such a gadget, you are sadly surprised as the dish falls several degrees (or worse) when you only desired to make a few tenths of a degree adjustment.

If your FTA dish does not have a fine adjustment mechanism like one of these, you are really going to battle the forces of gravity during your entire scope of the alignment process.

This is why I mentioned the "Walrus Elevation Adjustment Adapter" in the sticky about setting up a motorized dish. It isn't quite as critical for a fixed point dish as you only have to argue and cuss with your dish ONCE for one satellite, but when you start trying to perfect your arc and really fine tune it on a motorized system, you quickly learn that it is important to have such a device/adjustment.

My opinion is that ALL FTA dishes should come equipped with a fine tuning elevation adjustment. This would make life much easier and the hobby much more friendly.

RADAR

 

[Anole]

B.J. -
Great creativity, there! - :up

SatAV -
Both B.J. and Walrus benefit from moving their adjuster bolt farther from the dish pivot point.
I did some math on this several years ago, even down to "how many degrees of elevation for a turn of the bolt".
Probably in the JsatTV thread, but it wouldn't be hard to re-create.
Ya might calculate and discuss, and maybe experiment with various ratios, prior to production.
But regardless, a hearty - :up - for working on it!. -

 

[walrus1957]

One important note to make here. What B.J. and I have come up with is more simetrical and pushes from the center point of the dish, anything attached from the side will skew the azimuth while adjusting. Of course as AcWxRadar has found, if you forget to lossen the locking bolts on the the dish elevation flange that it still may tilt to the side first!

I love the simplicity of B.J.s adjustor, the only advantage that I could see with my version is that you can pull the dish down as well as push the elevation upward. The down side to mine is that it becomes a little more time consumming and exspensive to fabricate.

I wonder what B.J. and I could come up with if let loose in a machine shop for a few hours together?

 

[Anole]

Here's what they put on the 39" x 23" DirecWay dish: